Thoughts and a Sermon

The bohemian French restaurant I was at last week. A snapshot of the bar and its customers.


The more I learn about design, the more I understand how impossible it is for us to have come from the randomness of nothing. We watched this 3D computer video of the development of a baby from when the egg was fertilized to its conception and it occured to me that pro choice people like to argue that the embryo is not a human until several weeks later. Therefore the woman can abort the 'thing' inside of her since it's not human yet.
When I do a study of a nude woman and start with circles to represent the head, chest, hips and knees and a line to represent the spine, is it not 'evolving' into a human? Though it is only shown through a series of geometric shapes, someone looking at the artist draw cannot say "that is not a human." You cannot say to the artist "what you are drawing is not a human." Oh yes it is, because I am the creator therefore I define it as a human. I don't make sense.


Anyway, today I actually stayed awake during the entire church service and I think it was largely due to the fact we sat five rows in the front and the pastor was standing right in front of us. He focused his sermon on 'The Knowledge of God' and took apart Psalms 139 which I know by heart since I had to memorize it when I was little. Then, it had little meaning, now it means a lot more. He first started off with talking about doctrine and the doctrine of God which everyone, in some point of their life, must confront. Anyway he breaks down the chapter into four parts:
1. From verses 1-6 we see that God has inescapable knowledge (O Lord you have searched me and you know me)
2. David then continuse to write about God's inescapable presence (Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?)
3. Inescapable power (even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day for darkness is as light to you)
4. Inescapable justice: v19-24 (search me and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts; see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting)


Everyone knows the famous verse 13:
For you created me my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.


Then it goes on in verse 16,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained to me were written in your book,
before one of them came to be.


Now the key words are 'my unformed body' which, according to this guy Derek Hidner (no idea who he is), wrote that in Hebrew those three words are a single word which translates to embryo.
I thought that was pretty interesting.


Other interesting notes on the sermon was verse 6-7,
Your knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
The Hebrew translation was apparently really vague but boiled down to the word 'overwhelming'.
How precious are your thoughts O God, how vast is the sum of them! v17
The word 'precious' which is lost within the English translation, refers to the value of jewelry--> ultimate wealth.

Basically the entire sermon was on how we all want to desperately be known and seen yet we're conflicted by the fear of being known and seen. And we want to be known simply to be loved.
What I got out of the sermon/Bible passage was how David, at the beginning of the Psalm, bluntly tells us that God knows him inside and out (v1: O Lord, you have searched me and you know me). I don't know about you, but he seems a little exasperated when he tells us God is everywhere even he is on the wings of the dawn or on the farthest corner of the sea. Yet at the end of the passage he realizes that he cannot escape God and asks Him to examine his heart and ways.